​On September 18, 2017, the Board of Trustees at the Village of Airmont in Rockland county New York held a meeting. The first agenda item was “planning board and zoning board chairmen.” Minutes into the discussion, what appears to be John Cornelius, the Chairman of the Village of Airmont Planning Board, brought up the topic of knowing how many people attend houses of worship. (Mayor Philip Gigante appointed Mr. Cornelius to the Planning Board and he was made chairman too.)

As outlined in the first installment of this series, the Village of Airmont in Rockland county New York, changed some of its land-use laws in 2011 as part of a settlement of a discrimination lawsuit brought by the Justice Department. The village is now in a 12-month process of reviewing those changes and is apparently using the current review period to discriminate again in the form of a building moratorium whose origin seems to have aimed the Orthodox Jewish community.

The discussion of a moratorium was first proposed at a Board of Trustees meeting September 19, 2016. Below are other legislative steps that the Village adapted in recent years which have an overwhelming if not exclusive impact on members of the Orthodox Jewish community. More importantly, some of laws below were amended the last two years for the first time since the early 1990’s.

The Village of Airmont, situated in Town of Ramapo New York, was the subject of Federal lawsuits over the past 25 years. The Department of Justice in one case and four plaintiffs in a separate case, both in the early 1990’s, accused the village of discriminating against Orthodox Jews regarding houses of worship {Shuls} and Yeshivas.

In one of those cases, a jury found that the Village of Airmont as an entity violated the rights of the plaintiffs, but a Federal judge dismissed the Justice Department lawsuit. Then in 2005, the Department of Justice (DOJ) filed a new lawsuit against Airmont alleged that the Village wrongly blocked a yeshiva from building a dormitory and a housing complex. After years of costly litigation, the village agreed in 2011 to settle the lawsuit.​

New Jersey. - The council of Jackson Township voted Wednesday night, December 13th, to reverse its ordinance that blocked the construction of the Eruv, and the council of Mahwah Township voted Thursday to rescind its ban on out of state residents from visiting its parks. Both townships are facing legal and public pressure regarding these issues.​

149,562 students were enrolled in New York Jewish schools for the 2016-2017 school year. This is an increase from the 147,498 students a year earlier. The students were spread over 428 institutions throughout sixteen counties in grades full day Kindergarten through 12th, and the data includes students that were enrolled in Ungraded Elementary (UGE) schools and Ungraded Secondary (UGS) schools. The data was compiled by the Orthodox Jewish Public Affairs Council (OJPAC) from stats made available by the New York State Education Department.

July 21: Township of Mahwah orders the Eiruv to be removed within two weeks.

July 27: A Mahwah law banning non-New Jersey residents (appearntly aimed at Hasidim from New York) from using Mahwah parks was supposed to go into effect but was stopped at the last minute by the Burton County Prosecutor. Mahwah is in Bergen County.

Heidi Ewing is co-director of the newly released “One of Us” film regarding a few people who are no longer practicing Hasidim. In a paid interview on the Charlie Rose Show with Guest Host Jeff Glor, Ms. Ewing said Hasidim were murdered in the Holocaust “partly because they refused to blend in.” This is outrageous on its face and ignorant too as most Jews murdered had long “blended in”; were not observant and were certainly not Hasidic. See the video:

​Mahwah, New Jersey. - The Orthodox Jewish Public Affairs Council (OJPAC) filed an Open Public Records Act (OPRA) request with the Township of Mahwah, a municipality in Bergen County New Jersey which borders New York, to understand how the Township enacted an ordinance in June of this year that would permit only New Jersey residents to be at Mahwah parks. The law was suspended the day it was so supposed to go into effect in large part because enforcement would have targeted Hasidim. (Read How Mahwah’s Park Law Was Created, Illegally Changed and Then Suspended.)

While reviewing the emails, a shocking pattern of a legislative focus on the Jewish community emerged beyond the park law. County, state and federal officials may need to intervene to protect the rights of the Jewish community and to protect the Township’s Chief of Police from retaliation by some in the Town Council who are not happy how the chief acted in regards to the Eiruv and the Residents Only law.​

Mahwah, New Jersey. - Some portions of the Hasidic-populated areas in Rockland County, New York border the municipalities of Mahwah, Upper Saddle River and Montvale in Bergen County, Northern New Jersey. The following is a report of how the Township of Mahwah created an ordinance in June 2017 to ban non-residents from visiting Township parks; how exemptions to the ordinance was given without a council vote to change the language of ordinance, and how the law was suspended because enforcement of the law would have targeted Hasidim.

​This report is based on emails and documents that OJPAC received in response to an Open Public Records Act (OPRA) request filed with the Township of Mahwah.

East Ramapo, NY. - Recently, a State Supreme Court judge dismissed a lawsuit brought against the school district in early 2016. Per Politico New York, the Judge "said the petitioners failed to show that they or their students were impacted by the actions [of the School Board] and thus couldn't seek relief. He further wrote that the actions the parents were seeking are discretionary and can't be mandated." This setback for detractors of the district follows an earlier setback in Federal court when a judge dismissed 8 of 9 complaints in a different case before the case even started. The plaintiffs later dropped the 9th complaint in exchange for not being counter-sued by the district. In yet a different case, the U.S. Court of Appeals ruled in September 2016 that challengers of the board lack standing to bring a class action lawsuit where plaintiffs claimed that board members favor private schools over public schools.